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Google Maps' Moat Is Evaporating

joemorrison.substack.com

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Re: Google Maps' Moat Is Evaporating

#301

Post by notyourwork »

danielheath wrote: post #292
notyourwork wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Amazon is even more rapacious, In what way? It seems a bit like stone throwing to immediately toss another company into the conversation without providing some anecdote.

I mean, at a minimum, their habit of using customer data from their platform businesses to inform development of their own competing products is pretty sketchy.

Any store that uses a rewards, loyalty card or phone number when you checkout does the same. I'm not sure why Amazon is the bad guy when grocery stores have been distributing private brands of mainstream products and shopper loyalty has been used to optimize revenue streams. Amazon does it on a bigger scale, not sure the scale makes it right or wrong though.

Re: Google Maps' Moat Is Evaporating

#302

Post by mbirth »

grishka wrote: post #254
larrymyers wrote: post #90

I really want to use Apple Maps full time on my iPhone, just because of how much clutter Google Maps has accumulated on the screen. If anything tells me Google is losing the ability to innovate it's the newly added pill buttons for pre-set searches and branded POIs on the map. I remember when this was added to MapQuest circa 2010, and was the transition from trying to have an excellent mapping experience to just addi…

8 years later, Apple Maps still doesn't show buildings in Russia, even in largest cities. So it's essentially useless for actual navigation. It's okay-ish when all you want is to see a point on a map in a city you know, and that's about it. Out of other companies, Yandex and Google have by far more detailed maps. This leaves me with one question — why does Apple reinvent it anyway? Why can't they just use ridiculousl…

Probably why Google still has separate Waze and Maps maps. One is where users meticulously keep everything up to date, the other is where you copy those updates and can sell this as your own product/service.

Re: Google Maps' Moat Is Evaporating

#303

Post by throwaway0a5e »

danielheath wrote: post #292
notyourwork wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Amazon is even more rapacious, In what way? It seems a bit like stone throwing to immediately toss another company into the conversation without providing some anecdote.

I mean, at a minimum, their habit of using customer data from their platform businesses to inform development of their own competing products is pretty sketchy.

That's SOP in retail though. Walmart/Target/Home Depot/Best Buy/Whole Wallet, knows exactly what sells and use that to inform their own brands. And they kind of need to be tracking and analyzing those things in order to do their job.

Re: Google Maps' Moat Is Evaporating

#304

Post by throwaway1777 »

jedberg wrote: post #293

> Today, I would argue the three pillars of its comparative advantage are Places, Street View, and 3D data. And TRAFFIC data. The main reason I still use GMaps/Waze is because they give better arrival estimates than anyone else, because they have more traffic data, because of network effects. I think the winner of the maps wars will be the one who gets the best traffic estimates, and I think Google/Waze are still way…

That seems like a solvable problem with money. Get car manufacturers on board. A lot of people use their car’s built in navigation.

Re: Google Maps' Moat Is Evaporating

#305

Post by pldr1234 »

stiray wrote: post #288
entee wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's a risk here but I'm not sure it goes as far as you suggest. There are still plenty of entities, particularly larger ones, that buy their own metal because at some scales it becomes far cheaper to run in a COLO (at least acc to near monthly articles posted on HN). I'd therefore put the risk that only big vendors will be able to buy hardware as low. That said, as ARM or custom chips gain market share wi…

If those entities would be any risk, they would already be bought. Or they will be long gone due to google/aws/microsoft price dumping. In meanwhile, the openly accessible technology / know-how will be gone or hired by them and there will be no one left. Just look around, how many people you know that are capable of handling on-premise server? What about farm of servers without using any of google/aws/microsoft techn…

HN is missing a `word-break: break-all` on their `default p` class.

(Your reply with an unbroken word that spans larger than the page width forced my page to grow (horizontal scrollbar))

Re: Google Maps' Moat Is Evaporating

#306

Post by jeffhuys »

soperj wrote: post #267
spideymans wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say it's very reliable. I'll still cross reference Waze and Google Maps, if I absolutely need to arrive at somewhere on time, but over the past year or so there's only been a very small number of instances where I thought that Apple's navigation directions were inferior to the competition (and even then, we're talking a few minutes)

It's not reliable if you're cross referencing constantly. I live outside of the USA, and Apple maps consistently screwed up to the point that I've deleted it.

Also living outside the USA, and Apple maps is more accurate in some places than Google maps (the Netherlands). For instance a very big business lot was completely grey on Google maps, but completely mapped out on Apple maps. I don't even have Google maps downloaded on my new iPhone.

So, one anecdote for, one against, it evens out for now.

Re: Google Maps' Moat Is Evaporating

#307

Post by jedberg »

throwaway1777 wrote: post #304
jedberg wrote: post #293

> Today, I would argue the three pillars of its comparative advantage are Places, Street View, and 3D data. And TRAFFIC data. The main reason I still use GMaps/Waze is because they give better arrival estimates than anyone else, because they have more traffic data, because of network effects. I think the winner of the maps wars will be the one who gets the best traffic estimates, and I think Google/Waze are still way…

That seems like a solvable problem with money. Get car manufacturers on board. A lot of people use their car’s built in navigation.

> A lot of people use their car’s built in navigation.

I don't think that's true anymore. We were looking for cars back in February, and one thing I noticed is that many of the new cars did not come with navigation. When I asked why the dealer told me everyone just wants CarPlay because they use Google Maps on their phone. That made sense to me, since I too did not want to pay for navigation since I just use Google Maps via CarPlay.

Re: Google Maps' Moat Is Evaporating

#308

Post by jorvi »

Someone wrote: post #202
Lio wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple’s approach to cycling directions is second rate IMHO. It’s only available in certain media city locations. If you stray out of those areas you’re out of luck. Basically Apple seem more interested in rolling this out as a tick box item for journalists than helping me get to work. This tells me that Apple is not serious about its Maps app.

So, say they wanted to support this for most of the world, what would look different to outsiders? Waiting to support part of the world until they can support all of the targeted regions would deprive users of data they have for, I guess, years. So, it should be a gradual rollout. Where should they start? I would think it’s easiest in richer countries, where it’s easier to obtain reliable data, and updates thereof. A…

By your logic, Denmark or The Netherlands would have been the prime location for bicycle routing to be introduced. Not only are the governmental infrastructure data sources of pristine quality, those places also see the most amount of cycling hours in the world. So they would rapidly get more data that they could fine-tune their algorithms with.

Re: Google Maps' Moat Is Evaporating

#309

Post by jeffhuys »

on_and_off wrote: post #268
grishka wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With uBO on desktop and YouTube Vanced on mobile, you get the exact same experience AND save $12/month.

and you also don't contribute to the creators incomes. I can understand people vouching for using youtube premium or nebula instead, but not this.

People who care about that support them using (for instance) Patreon, and that makes them a LOT more than youtube will, especially with the demonetisation bonanza as of late.

Re: Google Maps' Moat Is Evaporating

#310

Post by sparrc »

joejoebags wrote: post #79

What’s up HN?! Always fun to find an article of mine on here. What I’ve learned so far: I’ve underestimated the important of their place data to the rest of the search apparatus, and likely underestimated the relevance of Maps to their autonomous vehicle strategy. What I remain curious about that I’d love your speculation on: why do they bother with the Google Maps Platform at all? They have plenty of ways to monetiz…

Just wanted to say thanks for the entertaining article, I learned a lot and especially enjoyed the FAAMm acronym XD.
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